Informationgathering

Today Jochanan and Primo went to the Coop in Tägipark in Wettingen to compare the prices of the products in Germany since Coop didn't want to send us a list with the prices of their products.

Lirim worked on his formula and looked up the various laws for import/export of "luxury goods" and all the German VAT regulations.

Formula:

 

P_G              = Price paid for goods in Germany in CHF

8%             = VAT, charge on food, which is rebated

P_CH            = Price in Switzerland for the goods

0.42CHF    = Transport expenses. From our calculation

P_T              = opportunity cost, price you pay for using your free time T_h in hours multiplied per the unit X in CHF you evaluate your free time from 20 CHF (minimum wage) up to 150 CHF for the missing something very important    T_h * X CHF= P_T

Explanation:

P_G is the price in CHF paid in Germany; the 8% are VAT on food which you get back, so this is subtracted from the costs paid abroad. 0.42CHF is the driving-cost per kilometre in Swiss Francs, used the most sold car in Switzerland in 2013: The VW Golf, 1.4 TSI. This number changes for every car, in general, the bigger the engine and the more expensive the car, the higher this number gets. Since it is the cost per kilometre, the distance to the shop abroad has to be multiplied by 0.42CHF. P_T is the time invested in driving to the shop, the time it takes to do all the grocery shopping is not relevant because it also needs to be invested in shopping in Switzerland. The time multiplied by a number in CHF you would value your free time, considering that, if not abroad, you have to do your grocery shopping either way. All costs, subtracted the 8% VAT of the price paid in Germany, makes the enumerator, which is divided by the price you would have to pay in Switzerland for the same goods, gives us a quotient Q and the smaller the number is, the higher is the benefit of the shopping tour. If the quotient Q=1 or more, it means that it is not worth shopping abroad.

 

Not the greatest start

After having a phone call with a confirmation of a price-list from December 2014 in Coop the woman on the phone told Primo to send a mail with the information he needed. In return Primo got an E-Mail which said they didn't have such things as price-lists from the past. 

Migros on the other hand gave Lirim a PDF file in which they wrote a lot about shopping over the border and why you should/shouldn't do it. 

Jochanan couldn't found an economic sociologist which is willing to give us his opinion about shopping in Germany. So we decided as we did for the website, as it is a side product, we thought we will consider the newspapers as a main source for the social problem.